


The Gap

by snowpuppies



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-04
Updated: 2009-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowpuppies/pseuds/snowpuppies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dracula gets two visitors. And a headache. Contains vague spoilers through BtVS S8:13 - Wolves at the Gate, Part II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gap

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [Kitty Poker](http://kitty-poker1.livejournal.com/).

Vampires hunger after blood.

It's the one facet of our unlives that binds us together, from the newest slavering minion to the bat-like creatures we become when we survive long enough to return to our roots.

It's _life_.

We thirst for it. We fight for it. We live for it.

Sometimes, we even die for it.

It is our source, our purpose, our greatest need and our greatest weakness. We dream of it, curled up in our coffins and crypts during the day when the sun climbs high in the sky and our every instinct calls each one of us to burrow deep into the earth where the sun cannot touch us.

It is the reason we rise again every night.

 

***

 

"Manservant."

"Mast—Hey, can we not do this again?"

"Your presence is unexpected."

"You're telling me. Look, I know this is crazy, of course this is crazy, because I'm not so much for the eating of bugs—although the mealworms were surprisingly tasty—but…I didn’t know where else to go."

"Your heart aches."

"—Yeah. She…I mean we weren't, but we were, kinda, and even so…"

"A fine demon she was."

"A fine woman."

"Perhaps that, too."

 

***

 

Humans hunger after something else.

On its face, the hunger is very different—we crave blood, they crave companionship, love, _connection_—but scratch the surface, and the desire is the same.

Even before I became a vampire I observed the depths to which humans would go for a sense of kinship: parents pleading for their children's lives, lovers clinging to each other in the face of death…each one grasping onto that connection in their final moments in the hope that it would somehow save them from the end.

It doesn't.

 

***

 

"Time to pay up, you tosser. I've come to collect!"

"Charming. I must speak with Butterfield about the guest list."

"Spike!"

"Harris."

"Spike! With the not-deadness and okay, maybe with some of the deadness, but didn't you go all shiny and poof?"

"Didn't take."

"Huh. Hey, how'd you find us anyways?"

"How do you think? Www dot Where's Vlad dot com."

"No, really?"

"Really. 'S under Google maps. Satellite images and all."

"How appallingly modern."

"You always were a bloody self-important stick in the mud. Now to the point: I'm here for my eleven pounds—with interest."

"I don’t recall such an arrangement."

"No? Recall Kiev? For farmers with pitchforks, they came bloody close to forking you right into a pile of dust. If it weren't for me and Dru, you'd be feeding the daisies about now."

"Ah. And how is Drusilla?"

 

***

 

They believe they are so different—William and my manservant—but they both feel the _need_.

My manservant aches for the one he's lost, all those he's lost, and William…

…well, William has always been inexcusably sentimental.

They both hunger for something more, a desire that will not be sated with blood—not even for William—and so they lash out in their frustration and loneliness.

It's…grating.

 

***

 

"Who ate the last kolache?"

"…"

"Oh, it must have been no one, since no one in this household except for me actually has to _eat_!"

"…"

"Which is fine, except it's gone. It was the blueberry one, the one I'd been saving all day, the one that _you knew_ I was going to eat!"

"…"

"Hello? Is anyone even listening? Bueller? Not talking for my health, here."

"Didn't see your name on it."

"I knew it."

"What? Just because a guy drinks the house red regularly means he can't enjoy a snack?"

"Spike! You just…grrr!"

"That's telling me, Harris."

"You know what? You owe me a blueberry-poppy seed kolache. In fact, I think someone should go play donut-boy right now and get some more."

"Good idea. Pick up some of those sausage things, too, will you?"

"Arrgh!"

 

***

 

_Terribly_ grating.

 

***

 

"Oi! Where're my fags?"

"Your _what_?"

"My smokes. You know, long tubes of paper, stuffed with nicotine, red package?"

"Secondhand smoke kills, you know."

"So's stupidity, and I'm taking my chances just standing next to you."

"Oh, you wound me."

"Belt up, Harris. Where are they?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"That's it."

"Ow! Spike, what are you—?"

"Hold still, you prat."

"Hands! Hands in places!"

"Keep your trousers on, I'm not after your cock."

"Says the man with his hand in my pocket."

"Looking for my smokes. Know you've got 'em here, somewhere."

"Not in my pants!"

"Not in the front, anyhow."

"Spike!"

 

***

 

I was human, once.

I lusted after many a lass—and had quite a few of them—but I never remember being so…inept…with someone I wished to bed.

Watching the awkward mating dance of William and my manservant was proof enough that becoming a vampire was the best decision of my life.

And it put me off my food something terrible. I actually lost a young girl—fourteen or fifteen, long dark hair and dark, smooth limbs, full of the brilliant metallic blood that fills my senses, drives me to the brink of desperation and ecstasy—while suffering a headache as a result of one of their spats.

It had to end.

 

***

 

"Just who do you think you are?"

"Who am I? _Who am I_?? I'll tell you—"

"Manservant! Take William to bed and be done with it—your squabbles are off-putting and distracting."

"What?"

"Wanna run that by us again?"

"I never—"

"You've got the wrong end of the stick, see—"

"You shouldn't talk so much when you drink, William. And manservant…you mumble in your sleep."

"I do not!"

"You're making that up. And you've still not paid me my eleven pounds!"

"I don't. I mean…vampire—eew!"

"And you've the maturity of those crawly spiders you eat."

"And you've been dead. Er…more dead, and that's just creepy."

"I've actually got taste, you know."

"And then there's the man thing, the gay thing, which is so not…"

"…?"

"Ok, so maybe that's…something, at least in theory, but you wouldn't possibly…"

"I wouldn't?"

"You…?"

"I…"

 

 

"Oh, sweet mother of Zeus!"

 

"Manservant! To your quarters!"

 

"Right. Bed. Now."

"Right with you, Harris."

"And you'll do that thing with your tongue?"

"How 'bout a little show and tell?"

"Oh, God."

 

***

 

And just like that, the hunger abates, withdrawing back inside to roll around in our stomachs and for a while, we're free of the cravings, of the maddening itch that crawls though our bodies, clamoring for _more_.

But it always returns, larger and more ravenous than ever.

And we'll do anything to fill the gap.

 

***

 

"You up for round two?"

"Mrpfhul."

"I'll take that as a 'yes'."

 

***

 

_Anything_.

 

 

 

_FIN_.

 

Originally archived [here](http://snowpuppies.livejournal.com/235247.html).


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